EV Pusher Project

Archive Page Four

Time to archive the last page and start a new one. Apr 24, 2001. Consumed most of the day patching holes in the pusher firewall, steering linkage hole, heater hose hole, brake line holes, holes that I made while extracting spot welded brackets with the pneumatic hammer, etc. The biggest hole was the air intake for the heater, about 8" x 8", covered with an aluminum plate and riveted in place. All of this to get ready for installing the original Rabbit fuel tank in the rear of the trailer.

Before quitting for the day, I managed to scratch together the parts needed to prototype an LPG fumigation system using a BBQ regulator, 12 volt solenoid valve, and a 11,000 BTU orifice from the same BBQ. The blue line carries the low pressure propane to the air intake on the engine, simply dumping it into the intake horn on the air cleaner. This will suffice for a test. Passing the gas through the air filter element would be a good way to eventually clog it up, so the final product will inject directly into the intake manifold. The finished LPG system will need to be interlocked to the engine and ignition, and will have a metering valve connected to the throttle. This setup is strictly for test, I'll try it at speed and maybe climb a few hills and see if it really does improve performance.

Also got a start on affixing the controller cabinet to the body of the trailer, attempting to tidy things up a bit in preparation for mounting the permanent fuel tank.

[edit] Don't forget to view the LPG Fumigation page [/edit]

April 25th. Trial by Fumigation (sort of). Had to work in the morning, then did three loads of wash and hung it out. Didn't really get started on the trailer until 3PM or so. Mounted the controller box and glow plug relay off the floor on the left-hand kick panel, and reinstalled the inverter wiring that I had removed to plug holes in the firewall. No surprise, the cables were too short for the holes they now needed to go through, so I had to make new, longer ones. Piddled around with a spring on the throttle lever, and decided that it could wait until later. Modified the controller to have a slave relay for the fumigation solenoid, and installed a temporary switch on the controller head in the EV so I could turn the LPG on and off.

So, about 7:15PM, I headed off to the grocery with the pusher in tow. The nearest Food Flood market is about 2.5 miles up Delta Highway, so I thought this would be a good time to try out the propane system. After attaining 50 MPH, I gritted my teeth and flipped the switch, which didn't have much of a discernable effect. In fact, it had no effect whatsoever. No gain in power, no huge flames out of the exhaust, no booster rocket acceleration, nothing. At the market, I checked to see that the gas was reaching the air intake (it was), and put the trailer into 3rd gear for the surface street trip home. Tried turning the gas on and of at 35MPH, with no results.

At home, with the engine idling, I switched on the gas and noticed that the engine speed increased by 60-80 RPM. Hmmm, about 10%, roughly the same as the gas-to-diesel mixture. The one effect that was quite noticeable was the change in the odor of the exhaust while idling on LPG/diesel. Gone was the ugly, oily smell, with hints of sulfur and old crankcase drippings. While I wouldn't call the odor pleasant, it was considerably better, somewhat reminiscent of propane fueled vehicles, but with a diesel twist (but then, I'm pretty used to the smell of diesel at this point).

Perhaps the magic effects of propane fumigation aren't fully released until the oft-touted 20% mixture is attained. Let's see, that would be about 25,600 BTU...That would mean drilling out the orifice in the system to 1.5mm, or a #53 twist drill size. Maybe I'll double up on the 11,000 BTU jets, or use one 11,000 and the 15,000 that I have. Oh no, more experiments to come.

Apr 26th. After drilling out the orifice on the LPG system, I washed both the EV and Pusher, then left home to pick up some building materials for the shed, purchase some feed for the animals, and on a whim, stopped by the wrecking yard to inquire about purchasing a complete 1.6 liter diesel for rebuilding. While wandering about, trying to remember where all of the Rabbits in the yard were, I passed through a row of pickup trucks. There, hidden in the middle of all of these Detroit locomotives, was a 1988 Rabbit Cabrolet (convertible), with a complete and very straight rear clip. I guess that being hidden in the truck section, no one looking for VW parts had found and stripped it yet. Checking into the office, I found that the engines were "core" (considered not running) and were $250. The rear clip was $75, if I prepared the body for cutting, clearing away any trim, cables, wiring and, most importantly, any fuel lines. As I've just finished cutting the rear off of one of these cars, I know how simple it is. I'm very tempted to buy it because I'll save hours of body work trying to straighten the one I have, and the Cab rear has a vertical door instead of a diagonal hatch, and I think it will be much easier to integrate it into the pusher body.

As for the 25,000 BTU propane system, I still can't tell any difference. One would think that more power would equal more speed at a given throttle position, or less throttle to hold the same speed, but over the course of the short distance I tried it, there wasn't any change from gas-on to gas-off. Maybe once I get it out on the open road with straight, level pavement and lots of room to move? Also considering tha the fuel I'm using is over five years old, and although diesel keeps well, the Cetane rating (like Octane for gasoline) suffers with time. Either trying some fresh fuel, or purchasing a Cetane booster might be a good thing to try.

Just enough time for a speed-of-light update while trying to cook and eat dinner, put away the horse, chop firewood and shower. May 2. After two days of pestering the wrecking yard to get the rear of the Cabrolet cut off, they finally went out and got the right tool and did it. Monday, I spent the entire (very rainy) morning doing the preparation to this car, getting it ready to be cut. I also noticed a lot of small parts that had been removed, like the weather stripping around the door, the gas spring from the door, etc. I made busy and collected those needed parts from the other Cab on the lot and made sure that I got a complete rear clip. Of course, to top off the morning, I locked my keys in the EV and had to beg a ride home from Greg to get my spare.

So now, with the rear clip on site, I can start making some progress on the body. I also found out today that the clutch in the pusher slips when I really lay on the throttle. I don't remember this happening before, so I'm wondering if it's the effect of the LPG fumigation and increased horsepower.

The other project I'm lining myself up for is to convert the EV to have rear disk brakes. I found a 1986 Golf GTI with everything I need to get 4WDB for $30 plus any machining, parts, etc.

More later, including a photo of the famous vertical rear door...

Yep, here's the famous door. Spent some time yesterday and today (May 4th) cutting off the bits of the rear clip that I knew I wouldn't be using, things like the inner fender wells. Also made some best-guess cuts on the front of the clip to make it fit in closer with the rest of the trailer so that I can begin fitting the two together. Sawed about 5 inches off the end of the pusher, and had to remove the muffler and tail pipe until I get the rear clip fitted better and can carve out a mouse hole in the rear roll pan for it to exit through.

Before burning out from lack of sustenance, I fitted a trailer lighting connector to the pigtail leading to the tail lamp assemblies on the rear clip. Since I sawed the supports off for the former temporary lighting, I decided to make these lights functional, but detachable until I get the clip fastened in place.

A week+ of updates all at once... May 12th. Some progress, and a bunch of related and unrelated chores over the last week. Last weekend, I installed 18 new Trojan T-105 6 volt batteries in the EV, cleaning out the battery compartment of dust and dirt, and making sure that all of the terminal connections (all 36 of 'em) were properly made and secure. The car seems to have a bit better acceleration now, and I think I'm using less ampere hours per mile, but I've only put 12 miles on it since the switch.

Also intruding on my time was several trips to radio stations to install equipment, and resurrect dead transmitters. Spring means outdoor chores like grass cutting, so I installed some of the batteries from the EV into my electric tractor and got the mower attachment after the vegetation that my horse won't eat down to stubble.

So, on to the pusher. I've been continuing to trim and fit the rear clip onto the back of the trailer. In this photo, the alignment is getting very close, the height is proper, the length about where it will be in the end, and I'm formulating plans for sheet metal that I'll have made and will weld in to support the back, and seal it up so that the weather stays out. Today, I cut the first few inches of metal off of the front of the doors to use as a transition from the front fenders to the rear, and then cut the back four inches of the doors off to use as an armature to provide the needed support and contours for the new construction. The old body off of the pusher is getting to be just a pile of splinters laying around waiting to be recycled, you can see some of it on the right of the image. Note that the remnants of the "A" pillars have been cut flush with the top of the body. I always worried that I would smack into those sharp posts, but didn't want to lop them off because I wasn't sure if I needed them to join with the rear. Well, I sure don't need them now! (I hope).

May 17. As nice as it would be to say I'm making progress putting the trailer together, this photo shows that I'm more busy tearing it apart. It turned out that the vandalism damage to the right fender was severe enough that I couldn't use it to align the rear clip, so I had to replace it before going any farther. Actually, I found two perfectly straight fenders (left and right) for $40, so I bought them both. Now I don't have to do any body work to either of them. Removing the fenders at the wrecking yard was an adventure. In addition to being held on with nine screws, the diabolical German engineers decided to also glue the fenders onto the car!!! A thick layer of really stiff rubber adhesive was applied between the rear of the fender and the firewall support post, and all over the heads of the screws, making the task to getting the body parts off without damage almost impossible, but I did it (with a little bending of the inner fender well where it doesn't show).

Back at home, I found that the pusher's left fender had no glue goop at all, and the right had so much that I couldn't even find the screw heads, and had to poke around with an ice pick just to locate them so I could cut away the caulking to remove them. Such consistency! While the fenders were off, I used a high pressure washer to blast all of the dirt out of the wheel wells, so now they're really nice and clean.

Thinking I'll wait to caulk the fenders back into place until after I've gotten the trailer prepped for painting. It'd be nice to be able to get them off again for sanding and priming.

Let's see, there are major parts from at least seven cars in the construction of the pusher at this point. When I locate a short block to rebuild, the tally will go even higher.

Time for the (now) once-a-week pusher report. Last Saturday (May 19th), after welding up a temporary support and installing some retaining screws to hold the rear clip in place, I took the longest trip with the trailer yet, 42 miles round trip to the site of the Oregon Country Fair, where I needed to do some planning for the renewable energy trailer's placement inside Main Camp. No problems to report, although I noticed today that one of the retaining bolts on the AC generator lost the nylon locking nut holding it tight. These diesels are hard on fasteners. I guess next I'll have to try double-nutting the generator and see if it can rattle loose again.

The engine ran nice and cool, but I lost a lot of coolant to the recovery tank after only 20 miles, nearly enough to overflow the tank. Since the goal is to drive it 250 miles to Eastern Oregon, I'd have to stop about 12 times to transfer the coolant back into the cooling system at this rate. Until a rebuilt head/engine is installed, I'm going to try to limit the loss of coolant by the addition of a needle valve on the recovery line. The idea is to slow down the flow of air escaping the system so that less liquid follows the air out the vent valve. This will be another try-it-and-see/adjust-it-some-more jobbies.

This will be the last photo of the pusher with it's ass in the air, when I got home from this trip, I removed the tow tongue and redrilled the mounting holes, so now the whole rig is sitting level with the EV.

Wish me luck, or burn a candle, or whatever, because Sunday, I'll be attempting another distance record, 100 miles round trip to a client's radio station. It's a straight run up the Interstate, no hills, and unless I have to stop to fool with the coolant system, no starting and stopping. Watch this space for exciting details (or not, if I get completely stranded on the way up or back).

Well, I made it! 46.5 miles each way (I know, big deal!!!). Sunday, May 27. Stopped twice along the way to check the coolant level and pressure, once at 26 miles, and again at 36. Looks like I have the needle valve set pretty close, the coolant recovery reservoir was only about three-quarters full when I arrived at the job site. The EV used 12.5 ampere-hours on the way up, running in parallel mode with the diesel. This is about what I'd expect to use in four miles of city street driving.

On the way back, I began to notice a slight lack of power about 12 miles from home. "Good" I thought, "This means that the propane cylinder is empty, so it really is making a difference." About 7 miles away from home, I began to notice a pronounced lack of power and power surges from the diesel. Figuring that the pick up hose in the fuel container had reached the end of the fuel level, I disengaged the clutch to motor home under electric power. The diesel promptly died, leaving me to struggle along at 50 MPH, pulling 200+ amps from the battery pack. One thing is for sure, I'm not planning on towing this trailer very far under EV power!

At home I did find that there was about a gallon left in the fuel can, but the hose had curled up out of the liquid and was pulling air. I filled the container full this time, as I don't want a repeat of this tomorrow when I return to finish the job. Since I'm still using the stupid plastic fuel can, I can't really say how much diesel I burned on the course of the 90+ miles I drove the pusher today, but I'm guesstimating something like 35 MPG, not great, but then the trailer is hardly aerodynamic at this point.

May 28th. Thank Goodness for dual-fueled hybrid vehicles! The trip up the Valley was uneventful, except for the semi trucks that were checking me out. I think one of the drivers (who honked and waved as he passed me) must have radioed ahead, because I was nearly always driving with an 18-wheeler right beside me as they looked over the pusher.

When I started the EV to begin the trip home, I found that the controller had failed, leaving me with no accelerator for the electric motor. It would idle just fine (at 1,800 RPM, as usual), but I couldn't speed it up past that. After deliberating a bit, I decided to just head home and hope that the pusher would keep running the whole way. Since the EV will reach 40 MPH under idle by upshifting through the gears, I was able to reach enough velocity to engage the pusher's clutch and apply power. Acceleration was a bit sluggish, as I had to disengage the EV's motor at 40 MPH, but I was able to hold 65 MPH the entire way home with the EV in neutral and the electric motor shut off.

The controller failed in this same manner last year at about this same time, so I'm hoping it's the same problem, a small $2 relay on the printed circuit board. If it's more complicated than that, I may not get it fixed right away, as I have no documentation on the controller, and have to reverse engineer the circuits before I can try to find defective components.

At any rate, I made it home in good time, and now need to decide if I should drive the EV/pusher to the job tomorrow (without an accelerator), or use my pickup. If the diesel dies without being able to accelerate the EV, it would be a very long and slow crawl home on farm roads. Maybe I'll have enough time in the morning to examine the controller and perhaps jumper out the relay as a test.

May 30, 2001. Over the course of the last four days, I've put 378 miles on the pusher driving back and forth to the client's radio station. This has been a good shake-down cruise, and I mean that literally. The biggest problem I've had is keeping the various nuts and bolts holding the accessories to the engine from abandoning ship due to vibration. Yet more problems with the AC generator mountings, the engine alternator lost a bolt, then sheared off the replacement. The neat chrome tip on the exhaust pipe lost it's screw, but the tip stayed on, rattling mightily and making me think I had thrown a rod or something else mechanically drastic. Of course, I didn't replace it immediately, so now the back of the trailer is covered with diesel soot (yuck). Guess I'll have to double-nut everything to keep the fixtures in place.

The 5 gallon fuel container is no picnic either, I've had to fill it each morning before leaving, removing the hoses and lifting it out of the back, and then replacing it while trying to not spill diesel all over the trailer and myself. Time to get the real tank installed. It would also be nice to have a larger propane cylinder, the little camping fuel containers had to be replaced at each end of the trip up and back, as one container (16.4 oz) wasn't enough for a round trip.

The controller problem turned out to be a shorted field control transistor. I popped in a generic replacement that I had on the shelf, and it seems to work fine, although I ordered a military-spec exact replacement part for the permanent repair.

Now it looks like the engine alternator isn't charging the battery, so I have another repair project (and money sponge).

Just a quick blip. Monday, June 4th. Yesterday, after the flea market, I went to look at a 1978 Rabbit Diesel that I found for sale in the classifieds that I thought I could use for a replacement engine for the pusher. Although the price was right ($325), the car was a total pile, poorly maintained, mostly wrecked, and had a soaking wet drivers seat because it had been sitting in the rain with the window open. It did start right up and idle fine, and even seemed to have a bit of power on hills, but the expansion tank was completely empty, as the owner had never checked the coolant level in the four months that he had owned and driven the car. Pouring in some water revealed some murky, diluted antifreeze, with an appearance similar to the polluted coolant in the pusher. All of this plus the obvious need of a new clutch made this car no bargain. I decided that at minimum, it needed a head gasket, and most likely, had a warped cylinder head like the pusher's engine. If I'm going to rebuild another engine for the trailer, I'd rather it was a later model 1.6 liter, and I'd rather start with one that wasn't damaged beyond routine repair.

In other cooling system news, today I installed the Rabbit's original heater core behind the grille and connected it to the engine, giving me another 14% radiator surface area. The original diesel radiator had been smashed in the vandalism, and the replacement I installed was from a gas engined Rabbit and was smaller in size. During my long distance trips last week, I noticed that the engine temperature went up after a period of acceleration, and took quite a while to cool off again. Hopefully, this will help with that, as I don't know how the pusher is going to handle mountain passes in the summer heat.

Don't know how much more I can cram into the engine compartment. Space is getting tighter all of the time under the hood. Maybe I should have started with a bigger car, like maybe a Cadillac?

June 21, Summer Solstice. An update, even though I don't deserve one.

No progress to report on the trailer. I'm just returned from a ten-day vacation to the Monterey Bay area, including a five-day, four-night stay ay Tassajara Zen Mountain Center, which is located 40 miles inside the Los Padres National Forest, outside of Carmel, California. The center is operated as a hot springs resort in the summer months, and I can't say as how I accomplished much of anything productive except for a lot of relaxing soaking in the hot mineral waters.

While visiting in Santa Cruz, I attended the Soquel Drive-In flea market, where I found four as-new Goodyear Invicta GLR low rolling resistance tires that will fit the EV for the price of $75.00 for all. Last year I paid $69.00 each for the tires that are on the car now. Cramming the tires into the sedan (which was already packed with luggage for two travelers), was a bit of a chore, but I got it all to fit.

The other notable find was a 2 gallon LPG cylinder that I've installed for the fumigation system.

Thinking I need to get some body work started on the pusher, and I'm also casting about for a replacement engine. Hope to get something useful done before the summer slips away...